Factories urged to ‘take longer term view on beef prices'
Factories have been urged by a farming organisation today (Wednesday, June 11) to take a 'longer term view on beef prices'.
The Irish Farmers' Association (IFA) livestock chair, Declan Hanrahan, has also called on factories to 'reverse the recent price cuts they are attempting'.
According to the IFA supplies of finished cattle are 'extremely tight with numbers' – based on Bord Bia projections and the strong live export trade – expected to be down almost 100,000 cattle for processing between now and year end.
Hanrahan today also said that beef production is also down in Ireland's key markets, chiefly the UK and the EU, and this supply demand balance 'must be utilised to benefit Irish and EU beef producers'.
The IFA livestock chair said that he is aware that factories are very concerned about supplies for the coming weeks and months and are 'actively ringing around farmers in attempts to secure cattle for this period'.
Beef prices
He also stressed that the UK and EU markets are the 'most important outlets' for Irish beef and warned of the threat to posed to Irish beef farmers and long-term viable beef prices from 'trade deals that give access to these markets to cheaper beef'.
Hanrahan pointed to recent trade deals concluded by the UK which he said gives more access for beef to their markets and to ongoing Mercosur concerns and the prospect of discussions re-starting with Australia and the EU.
He believes any 'additional access for cheap beef to these markets would only serve to undermine our prices' and has urged the Irish government to stand firm in rejecting any deals that provides more access to the EU market for beef.
According to Hanrahan beef prices in Ireland have only reached levels that reflect the 'actual production costs on farms' and reflect the quality of product Irish farmers are producing.
He believes that it is important for the long-term viability and sustainability of suckler and beef farmers that they are retained.
'To deliver long term viable prices to suckler and beef farmers factories, Bord Bia and our government have key roles to play, factories can and must stand firm in the market place, beef supplies are tight, demand is strong and they must maximise the opportunity that exists to return higher beef prices to farmers supported by Bord Bia highlighting the standards our beef is produced to,' he said.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Independent
an hour ago
- Irish Independent
Ireland to take soundings over EU joining UK-led sanctions against far-right Israeli ministers
Taoiseach Micheál Martin has already criticised one of the two men – the Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, leader of the National Religious Party-Religious Zionism. He and the Israeli security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir are to be sanctioned by the UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Norway. The move has angered Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court in connection with alleged war crimes. Norway was previously involved with Ireland in a co-ordinated move to recognise a Palestinian state, which included diplomatic contact with Spain, Belgium, Malta and Slovenia last year. Ireland will explore possible sanctions from as early as next week, when Mr Martin attends a conference on a two-state solution, convened in New York by co-hosts France and Saudi Arabia. Sources said the contacts in New York could then potentially feed into discussion at an EU summit in Brussels the following week. EU high representative for foreign affairs Kaja Kallas has been monitoring the move of the UK-led bloc, none of which are EU members. An Irish government source said: 'We have pushed for such sanctions at EU level, including at the recent meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council on May 20, but it requires unanimity and that isn't there for sanctioning these individuals at this point.' Mr Martin is also pursuing the suspension of the EU-Israel trade agreement, which would have a paralysing effect on Israeli exports. He told the Dáil earlier this month: 'I believe the agreement should now be suspended, pending a review,' adding that Ireland and Spain had first called for scrutiny of the deal under its human rights provisions. Mr Martin said he was aware of 'reprehensible' comments from Mr Smotrich. He said Mr Smotrich had been 'speaking openly about conquering Gaza, and, with God's help, pushing the population south and into third countries'. 'So this is a senior minister of the Israeli government articulating in no uncertain terms what the agenda is – and it is absolutely reprehensible,' the Taoiseach added. 'It is also absolutely unacceptable that innocent people were abducted and remain hostages so long after October 7, 2023.' He said it was 'wholly unacceptable' to contemplate the mass displacement of people in Gaza, or to talk of permanent occupation. 'Not only is it an affront to decency and to international law, but history tells us that it offers no solution.'
Irish Independent
an hour ago
- Irish Independent
Meta takes Irish media regulator to court over size of levy
Meta has launched a legal action against the Irish media regulator challenging the size of the levy it is being asked to pay.
Irish Examiner
2 hours ago
- Irish Examiner
Cianan Brennan: Why didn't government admit its error with biometric public services cards?
Six years ago, the Data Protection Commission (DPC) went mano-a-mano with the government of the day over the infamous public services card, and ended up in a long legal war of attrition. That battle involved a simple question: Could the card be used as a catch-all portal for citizens accessing the State's services, regardless of their wishes? That particular spat was more than a little unedifying, ending up in a wholesale climbdown on the part of the Department of Social Protection in December 2021. However, yesterday's decision by the commission to fine the department €550,000 and order it to suspend the biometric processing of the public's data via the card should be even more seismic. €550,000 is five times the amount of the next-largest fine for breach of GDPR by a public body, and more than half of the maximum allowable. Puzzling defence of the indefensible Six years is a long time, however, and the world is a different place now. This time round, the State may be more willing to take its punishment from its own regulator. That in itself would be borderline farcical. The government — former social protection minister Regina Doherty being probably the most noteworthy culprit — argued for years that the card did not carry biometric data, despite it being plainly obvious to anyone with common sense that it did — in this case, a photo used for facial matching. Why did the State spend hundreds of thousands of euro in taxpayers' money defending the indefensible? The answer may be because it couldn't afford not to. Why did it do so? Because it couldn't afford not to. Having stated until it was blue in the face that black was indeed white, to change tack in any way would have been legally disastrous. Why the government of the day couldn't just hold its hands up and admit fault in the first place, rather than spending hundreds of thousands of euro in taxpayers' money defending the indefensible, we may never definitively know. However, we can speculate. The card is deeply ingrained in Irish society now, but that wasn't the case to quite the same extent in 2019. Furthermore, back then GDPR was brand new. It was so new that the initial investigation into the public service card was carried out under Ireland's previous Data Protection Act. Under that act, the commission had far fewer teeth to impose fines. GDPR is now a firmly embedded, if not universally beloved, EU policy. Maybe in 2019 it was felt the time wasn't right for the government to eat crow on its ambitious biometric card venture. Range of views in data protection community Those we polled yesterday across Ireland's niche data protection community had different views as to whether or not the Government, in the guise of the Department of Social Protection, will go the legal route once more. One said: The circumstances have changed. The data protection and GDPR landscape is much clearer now than it was under the old act. 'It seems more likely than not that this is one that won't be challenged, at least not in court.' However, there was little consensus. 'For years, they [the department] have been shouting that there is no biometric data on the card. Now this decision from the regulator is unequivocal that there is. Can they really back down from that? Would that be in character?' a second expert asked. DPC will defend its decision 'very robustly' Should the Government press the nuclear button once more and appeal the decision to the courts, deciding commissioner Dale Sutherland has made it clear that 'we will very robustly defend our decision'. He said: We are well used to this. It is a feature of our system. There are other puzzling aspects to yesterday's decision, not least the sheer length of time it took. The biometrics investigation had been set in train even before the 2019 decision, which dealt specifically with whether or not the government had the right to make the card mandatory for public services such as passport applications, yet it was only officially commenced in July of 2021. It then took four more years to complete, during which time the card has become ever more embedded in Irish society. That is surely an inordinate amount of time to take over a key investigation concerning personal data. 'This was a complex inquiry with complex issues,' Mr Sutherland said. 'The resources these inquiries take are just extraordinary. This one took a bit of time,' he added, while allowing 'it's probably a bit longer than we would have liked'. Digital Rights Ireland, whose initial complaint spurred the investigations back in 2017, professed itself 'concerned' at the length of time it had taken to finalise the probe. A spokesperson added that the decision 'leaves the Government in a very serious situation', given it has spent 'hundreds of millions of euro on an illegal public service card project'. Mr Sutherland stressed, however, that 'the important thing is that it [the investigation] is done now'. Asked whether the world had moved on in the last six years, he said: 'The principles haven't.'
